


Dragon Touched

by morrezela



Series: Dragon Touched [1]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Angst, Intolerance, M/M, Mates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-28
Updated: 2013-10-28
Packaged: 2017-12-30 17:17:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morrezela/pseuds/morrezela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a dragon-mate comes of age, the scales of their intended grow upon their skin. Custom dictates that they go to the nearest lair and seek out their mate. Jensen’s never came.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragon Touched

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This isn’t real. The people mentioned belong to themselves. I am receiving no remuneration from this.
> 
> Warnings: dragon fic, mystical spell mating, intolerance, assault
> 
>  
> 
> A/N: This is my twenty-fourth fill for my AU Bingo Card. The square is ‘alternate societies.’
> 
> Yet another fic that I wanted to be longer, but ran out of time on.
> 
> This is also my final fill for me Year of the Dragon Fic meme.
> 
> All mistakes you find are my own.

Jensen never thought his life would be so empty. Night after night, alone in his lair with nothing but the wind for company, he was rather surprised that he hadn’t yet gone insane. He was thirty. Thirty years old and mateless. His carefully constructed chambers went unused, and his treasure unhandled by any hands save his own.

It was never supposed to be this way. He was supposed to have a mate. There was supposed to be romance and touching and wooing and cuddling. He was supposed to have what his parents had, what every other dragon and dragon-mate had, but instead he was left alone.

There had been rare cases over the years of dragons who went without their mates. Ever since the spell of scales was cast, there had been pockets of resistance amongst the humans. Some felt that the spell, a spell of love and fidelity, was cast so that dragons could enslave humans. They whispered words like ‘slave’ and ‘whore’ behind a dragon’s back. They would ‘mercy kill’ their sons and daughter, neighbors and friends to keep them from being with their dragon.

Their violence was always carried out behind closed doors. It was safely hidden away from prying eyes, but that did not mean it didn’t exist. Jensen knew as well as any other dragon that some humans would give their right arms for the chance to hunt down and kill any dragon that they could.

He also knew that his mate was dead. There was no other option, not at his age. A mate knew that he or she belonged to a dragon as soon as one’s majority was reached. Jensen’s own, brightly colored scales would have begun to pattern in on his mate’s skin. They would have been sensitive, yearning for the touch of their dragon.

If his mate was still alive, he or she would already be safely ensconced in Jensen’s lair. He would be doting upon his mate with treasures and touches and long, thorough mating sessions. No city or settlement was more than three days journey away from a dragon outpost. Jensen’s mate would have tried to make it to one of these places as soon as his or her scales had come in. From there, the search for the matching pattern would have been launched, and his mate would have been brought to him.

None of the inquiries over the years had ever been Jensen’s mate. On the day of his thirtieth year, Jensen had finally given up hope and accepted the commiserations and pity of his fellow dragons. There was no chance remaining that his mate hadn’t yet reached majority. The dragon-mates were always close in age to their dragons. It ensured the longest possible period of happiness and bonding.

The sad thing was that he couldn’t even bask in his sorrow with company. Dragons had cast the spell for a reason. They were too protective and jealous of their hoards. They guarded their treasures fiercely, and could only be around each other for so long before fighting broke out.

Jensen’s only hope for companionship was trekking into the village that sat a ways away from his lair. They didn’t know him there. Rather, they did not know his human form for he had made a practice of keeping that hidden from humans. While most would be friendly enough even if they were wary of him, there were always those who fancied themselves hunters. While he was miserable in his existence, Jensen was not suicidal.

Instead he created an elaborate tale of being a wandering minstrel. His voice was good enough, and he had any assortment of instruments in his lair that he enjoyed playing. There were plenty of songs on the music sheets that he had collected over the years. Some of his sadder tunes he had written himself as he pined for his mate.

On occasion, Jensen would even fly out to villages that were farther away. He would learn new songs and establish a presence on the off chance that anybody from his village would grow suspicious and begin to make inquiries about him and his travels.

It was market day when Jensen arrived. It lifted his dour mood a bit as his inner nature reared its head at the possibility of new and undiscovered treasure. Focusing on that urge, Jensen moved quickly to the market stalls before he could think upon the fact that he had no mate waiting for him at home to share the treasure with.

The smells from the food stalls tugged at Jensen’s gut. While he loathed parting with his coins, he couldn’t help but follow his stomach. He restrained himself from buying any of the roasted haunches or baked rabbits, instead settling for some fragrant broth to sip upon. It curbed his appetite, but didn’t sate it. He wanted to peruse all of his options before settling on his fare.

Jensen was in the middle of bartering for a nice rack of lamb meat when the shouting broke out from over by the fabric stalls. By the time that he made it to where all the commotion was happening, there was quite the crowd gathered.

“Leave him be, Thomas!” some people were shouting. Others were calling out bets or encouraging Thomas to finish the job.

There was a man on his back, bleeding and covering his head with his arms. Over him loomed another man with blood on his knuckles, presumably Thomas.

“I’m just trying to put you out of your misery, Jared,” Thomas said, oddly gentle for a man trying to commit murder. “It’ll be better this way.”

“Please, no,” Jared begged.

“What’s going on?” Jensen asked the old man standing next to him.

“He’s got the touch on him,” the old man told him, his eyes never leaving the spectacle in front of them.

“Leprosy?” Jensen asked dumbly.

“No, boy, the touch of the dragons,” the old man hissed.

Having been sentenced to a life without his mate, Jensen wasn’t going to subject any other dragon to that same fate. He didn’t even think as he pushed forward through the crowd, shifting into his natural form to stand protectively over Jared. He snapped his jaws once at Thomas then roared. The people began to run away so quickly that Jensen developed an understanding for why his fellow dragons sometimes liked to terrorize humans.

Thomas fainted.

Jensen snorted at the man’s lack of courage, but gave him no more thought, instead turning his attention towards Jared.

“Are you okay?” Jensen asked as he moved so that he was no longer standing directly over the man.

Jared didn’t answer him. He just laid there and quaked in fear.

Jensen would have given him more time or tried to cajole him, but he could hear the cries of the villagers fighting. Most of them were arguing with the others, encouraging them to leave the dragon and the dragon-touched boy alone. But enough of them were talking about hunting and slaying that Jensen didn’t feel safe in the square.

He scooped Jared up from the ground and took to the skies as quickly as possible. Flying as high as he dared with so delicate a parcel, Jensen made haste to his lair. By the time that he reached it, Jared had quit trembling.

As soon as he placed the delicate human down on the ground, Jared hit his snout.

“I’m not your whore,” Jared announced.

Jensen sighed and the gust of warm air pushed against Jared, making him stumble backwards. “My dragon-mate is long dead because of men like Thomas, so no. You are not mine.”

Jared’s stance relaxed at that. “Oh, sorry,” he mumbled.

Jensen shifted into his human form causing Jared to look away with a blush. “We should, however, start looking for yours.”

“No!” Jared protested, wrapping his arms protectively around himself.

“Jared…”

“I am my own man,” Jared hissed. “The scales mean nothing.”

It was clearly a rhetoric that Jared had preached to himself, and Jensen felt bad for the young man. “It means that you have a mate out there who cares for you with every breath that he takes. It means that you are beloved.”

“They are ugly and vile. I hate them,” Jared spat out, his eyes challenging Jensen’s words.

“Just let me see them? If you meet your mate, I’m sure that you…”

“Get away from me!” Jared screamed, curling in on himself as far as he could go. “I’ll not show you my shame. I’ll not show you anything!”

Jensen could push. He could easily overpower the human if he so desired, but that would likely only frighten him more. There was nothing wrong with taking the time to earn the man’s trust. From the looks of him, he was an older mate anyway. His dragon was used to waiting, and a few more days here or there wouldn’t matter.

“Well, at least take your rest in one of my rooms. The village will not be welcoming either of us any time soon, and you have only the clothes on your back,” Jensen pointed out.

“It is a far sight more than you have,” Jared shot back, then flushed in embarrassment.

Wisely, Jensen chose not to remark on how Jared would have to become accustomed to nakedness once he was with his own mate. He didn’t want to agitate him any further. Besides, Jensen could do with some company for a few days.


End file.
